E9 2009 demo of The Last Guardian “specced up” for the show

Like so many E3 demonstrations, there was a bit of smoke and mirrors at work.

Speaking to Kotaku at E3, Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida has admitted that first trailer that stole our hearts wasn’t really representative of how The Last Guardian was performing at the time.

“There were lots of technical issues”, said Yoshida. “The video we showed, the trailer on PS3, was specced up. The game was running at a much lower frame rate… it was clear that the team had to make a compromise.”

But even after cutting back on the scope of features and the size of the game’s cast, the PS3 still struggled. The team treaded water until PS4 development became an option in 2012, when the decision to shift the project to the newer console allowed them to start making some real progress.

And now? The game is “totally playable” according to Yoshida, so fingers crossed the projected 2016 release date will stick.

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